Should I being using a wiki or blog for my note/documentation tasks? What are ya’ll doing? Why? Pros and Cons? I have a ton of txt files with notes on various subjects. I want to get these notes online so I can better organize them and have access to them from all machines.
I already have a blog so I was thinking it would be real easy to just put my notes up on my blog. A new post for each txt file. Put them in a new category (maybe notes or documentation). I would probably keep them out of my regular feed so people don’t have to read the stuff, but they will be online, and search-able.
My blog solution sounds easy, but I think I really should me using a wiki for this info. I mean isn’t that part of what a wiki is for, info storage. The reason I’m not just going with the wiki option from the start is that another big part of wiki is the whole “collaboration” thing. And I’m not interested in looking for collaborators. I just want to get my notes off my machine and up on the web.
Another problem I have with wikis is that people take what’s in their current website and just duplicate it in a wiki. Then the two sources get out of sync and you never no where to go for up-to-date info…  Damn… I just went off on a rant… Sorry… That’s for another post.
So to wiki or blog my info?
Go with a wiki. I find using a wiki to string things together pretty easy.
I’m kind of leaning towards wiki, but, again, I’m not 100% sold since I’ll be the only person doing the editing. Wiki feels like overkill with one editor, but the ease of use is pulling me in that direction. I’m sure if Pete Carapetyan read this he would be screaming DRUPAL, which is definitely overkill.
You’re right that I like drupal but I also like Camtasia now whenever it works, screencasts can be a lot easier to follow for notes/documentation.
I also really like PDFs which I make using openoffice, because I can store screen shots right in them and they work great, I’ve done that a lot.
There is also maven build documentation which is really really nice and wiki like too in syntax.
Then there is the wiki which is great, and dreamhost gives me as many as I want as one click installs.
And Javadoc ! Don’t forget that.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to easily weave all of this together and use whatever worked best ?
There he is…. Pete you found this. I’m glad to get your thoughts. Now where are you gonna start the open source project that brings everything you just mentioned together and makes it easy?
No such luck Erik, I’m going to stick with Camtasia for everything I can and just ignore all the rest until someone makes me do it, and not worry about it.
This is a very creative area and people love to be creative, first rule is stay out of their way 🙂